Trump team officially ends Musk's ‘five things' DOGE email that drew ire and led to thousands of resignations
When the billionaire was at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency before his relationship with President Donald Trump imploded in early June, his short-lived initiative prompted widespread outrage among employees and management at federal agencies.
Federal workers were ordered to email the Office of Personnel Management as part of a drive to drastically cut staff numbers. Workers who did not comply were threatened with termination.
Now the federal human resources agency has informed workers that they no longer need to comply, Reuters first reported.
'At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so,' the agency's director Scott Kupor said in a statement, according to the outlet.
Kupor, who took up the role at the agency in July, reportedly added that the agency would no longer be using the process internally, after he described it as 'not efficient' and 'very manual.'
It was 'something that we should look at and see, like, are we getting the value out of it that at least the people who put it in place thought they were,' he said last month.
The move is an indicator that the Trump administration is looking to leave the Musk–DOGE era in the past, as the tech mogul has proved increasingly unpopular following his time in government.
Musk's email ultimatum went down like a lead balloon with other department heads, including FBI director Kash Patel, who sent his own email to employees to clarify where the bureau stood.
'FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,' Patel wrote, according to an NBC report at the time. 'When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.'
The State Department and the Justice Department also told staff to hold off on responding to Musk's ultimatum when the email landed in inboxes earlier this year.
After backlash, Musk said the emails were a way of checking if employees 'had a pulse.'
'This was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email,' Musk said. 'This mess will get sorted out this week. Lot of people in for a rude awakening and strong dose of reality. They don't get it yet, but they will.'
The Musk–Trump bromance came to an explosive end after the Tesla CEO's time as a special government employee expired at the end of May. After staging a bizarre farewell press conference in the Oval Office, Musk began to publicly lash out at Trump's 'One Big, Beautiful Bill.'
Trump said that Musk was 'wearing thin' as the men traded blows on their respective social media platforms. Their feud culminated in Musk posting, without evidence: 'Time to drop the really big bomb. @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' He later deleted the post.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
12 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's planned 100% computer chip tariff sparks confusion among businesses and trading partners
President Donald Trump 's plans for 100% tariffs on computer chips that aren't made in the U.S. are stoking confusion among businesses and trading partners — boosting stocks for leading semiconductor companies while leaving smaller producers scrambling to understand the implications. The U.S. imports a relatively small number of chips because most of the foreign-made chips in a device — from an iPhone to a car — were already assembled into a product, or part of a product, before it landed in the country. "The real question everybody in the industry is asking is whether there will be a component tariff, where the chips in a device would require some sort of separate tariff calculation,' said Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Trump said Wednesday that companies that "made a commitment to build" in the U.S. would be spared the import tax, even if they are not yet producing those chips in American factories. 'We'll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,' Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. 'But if you're building in the United States of America, there's no charge.' Wall Street investors interpreted that as good news not just for U.S. companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia, but also for the biggest Asian chipmakers like Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company that have been working to build U.S. factories. But it left greater uncertainty for smaller chipmakers in Europe and Asia that have little exposure to the AI boom but still make semiconductors inserted into essential products like cars or washing machines. These producers "probably aren't large enough to get on the map for an exemption and quite probably wouldn't have the kind of excess capital and margins to be able to add investment at a large scale into the United States,' Chorzempa said. The announcement came more than three months after Trump temporarily exempted most electronics from his administration's most onerous tariffs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of computer chips increased the price of autos and contributed to higher inflation. Chorzempa said chip tariffs could again raise prices by hundreds of dollars per vehicle if the semiconductors inside a car are not exempt. 'There's a chip that allows you to open and close the window," Chorzempa said. "There's a chip that is running the entertainment system. There is a chip that's kind of running all the electronics. There are chips, especially in EVs, that are doing power management, all that kind of stuff.' Much of the investment into building U.S. chip factories began with the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022, providing more than $50 billion to support new computer chip plants, fund research and train workers for the industry. Trump has vocally opposed those financial incentives and taken a different approach, betting that the threat of dramatically higher chip costs would force most companies to open factories domestically, despite the risk that tariffs could squeeze corporate profits and push up prices for electronics.
The Independent
12 minutes ago
- The Independent
Vice President Vance reacts to his depiction on South Park
JD Vance reacted on X to a South Park episode that parodied the administration, stating, 'Well, I've finally made it.' The episode depicted a mini-version of the vice president serving the president, who was shown in bed with Satan. It also featured a parody of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, known for shooting her dog, and Cartman imitating a conservative activist. The plot involved Mr Mackey joining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), leading to a raid on heaven and his invitation to Mar-a-Lago. The show's mockery follows a previous exchange where South Park sarcastically responded to a DHS post using their image and a White House statement questioning the show's relevance.
Reuters
13 minutes ago
- Reuters
US jobless claims edge up, but 'no-hire, no-fire' trend remains intact
Aug 7 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits ticked up to the highest level in a month last week, suggesting the labor market was largely stable even though job creation is weakening and it is taking laid-off workers longer to find new employment. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits for the week ended August 2 rose 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 226,000, the highest level since the week ending July 5, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 221,000 claims for the latest week. The labor market has slowed, with government data last week showing far fewer jobs were created in July than economists had expected as uncertainty over President Donald Trump's tariffs left businesses wary of adding workers. Moreover, employment gains in the previous two months were revised lower by nearly 260,000, a stunning reversal that prompted Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics - a move that rattled investors and economists already anxious about the eroding quality of official U.S. economic data. The latest data on new claims indicates employers are not yet turning to large-scale layoffs as the economy loses steam but are managing through attrition. That has helped keep the unemployment rate, at 4.2% in July, relatively low even while job growth has slowed. Declining labor supply amid the White House's immigration crackdown is also helping to stave off a jump in the jobless rate. Employers' hesitancy to increase hiring means there are fewer jobs for those being laid off. The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, rose to a seasonally adjusted 1.974 million during the week ending July 26, the claims report showed. That was the highest level of so-called continued claims since November 2021, and the increase of 38,000 from the previous week was the largest since late May. Despite the rise in both new and ongoing claims last week, economists note the two continue to remain largely range-bound and have not exhibited the kind of breakout upswing that in the past has signaled a deteriorating job market. Indeed, the weekly net change in new claims has remained below 10,000 - in either direction - for 10 straight weeks, the longest such streak in about three years. "The sideways drift in initial and continuing claims in recent months suggests that layoff activity is muted," Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, wrote in a note. "The 'no hire/no fire' theme in the labor market remains firmly intact." That said, continued claims had been averaging less than 1.9 million until early May and in the three months since have averaged about 40,000 higher at about 1.94 million. That reset now makes more sense to some economists in light of the historic downward revision to the job creation figures for May and June that were revealed by BLS last week. "The level of continued claims is still signaling that unemployed workers are finding it tough to find a job in a labor market where hiring is slow," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote. "Moreover, the steep rise in claims since April makes more sense following the sharp downward revisions to job growth in May and June and the sluggish pace of hiring in July." Meanwhile, the Labor Department also said worker productivity rebounded more than expected in the second quarter, easing a surge in labor costs at the start of the year. Nonfarm business sector productivity increased 2.4% in the April-June period after declining by 1.8% in the first three months of the year, BLS reported. Economists polled by Reuters had expected productivity to rise by 2.0%. Worker output increased by 3.7%, the largest improvement since the third quarter of 2023, while unit labor cost growth moderated to 1.6% from an upwardly revised 6.9% in the first quarter. The data may be indicative of ongoing investments by businesses in labor-saving technologies like artificial intelligence, economists said. "Productivity growth is settling back into its historical trend after bouncing around because of the pandemic," said Oren Klachkin, financial market economist at Nationwide. "Looking ahead, businesses will likely invest in labor-saving technologies to cap their wage bills, which should exert downward pressure on inflation. Companies facing the greatest labor constraints will likely be the most incentivized to invest."
